It's a little known fact that celebrity baker Paul Hollywood began his fledgling TV career while working at the city’s upper crust Chester Grosvenor hotel.

Rising star Paul, from Wallasey, is famous as a judge on BBC2’s baking show The Great British Bake Off and has also presented Paul Hollywood’s Pies and Puds , a cookery television series on BBC One.

But what is less appreciated is that Paul honed his skills as head baker at The Chester Grosvenor where his father John and brother Lee have also worked in the past.

And Paul, whose grandfather was head baker at The Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool, has previously spoken about working at The Grosvenor as a young baker when Granada Reports shot a piece with him about baking bread.

“They interviewed me for about six hours, and I remember thinking as I walked out of the hotel to go home, ‘I’ve made it’. Then on telly that night it was about 30 seconds long,” he recalled.

At first he made the morning bakes, the croissants and pastries, before moving onto the cakes and the afternoon teas.

“I loved it there. I still go back there when I’m in town and have their afternoon tea. They’re good at doing the little touches so it feels like a real treat.”

Paul recently appeared on The Jonathan Ross Show where he trotted out his CV, demonstrating his role as TV expert is backed up by hard-earned graft in the finest establishments.

He told Jonathan: “Fame, I have had to learn it very quickly because of what I do. When I was very young I was in my father’s bakery, then I ended up working at Cliveden, The Dorchester, I worked at The Chester Grosvenor and professionally I worked at some of the best hotels. I worked in Cyprus for six years and when I came back Bake-Off found me.”